U.S. Political Elites Refuse to Accept Russia's Legitimacy

If you refuse to accept another nation's legitimate interests, you in effect refuse to accept that nation's legitimacy.

If one accepts that Russia is a legitimate nation, then it inexorably follows that it must have legitimate interests. Surely its interest in Ukraine is legitimate, if it is to have any interests at all that the U.S. and the lackey states of the American imperium recognizes.

But apparently just as it used to be in America that no black man had any rights that a white man was bound to respect, Russia has no interests that America will deign to recognize.

Yet again, the Sunday morning political propaganda shows on U.S. television, populated with the inbred elite of the capital city of the U.S. empire, treated the public to more hysterical bashing of Russia and Putin over Ukraine. George F. Will, a reactionary fixture of the U.S. propaganda system, opined authoritatively (the only way he ever opines) that war has already been started by Russia in Ukraine. Putin's evil “aggression” was much denounced by all on every channel.

What are Russia's interests in Ukraine?

1) Ukraine is on Russia's border.

2) The Crimea peninsula of Ukraine provides Russia's only sea access in its west that is below the Arctic Circle. Russia was now a landlocked nation along its entire thousands-miles long southern border before the Crimeans voted to reunify with Russia (of which Crimea had been a part for centuries until the half-Ukrainian Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev impulsively gifted the Ukrainian Soviet Social Republic- part of the Soviet Union- with it in 1954).

3) Ukrainian factories produce key parts for strategic Soviet weapons.

4) Russia has an interest in preventing a hostile military alliance, NATO, from continuing to gobble up the nations on Russia's western border and farther west. NATO has absorbed all but a handful of Russia's western neighbors. Ukraine is one of the last holdouts.

I don't believe in nation states. But the people who rule the world, who fancy themselves “global leaders,” do. So then the question is: is Russia a legitimate nation-state? Well, let's compare it to its two current leading foes, the U.S. and Germany. Russia has been a nation for centuries longer than either of those two, so it has seniority. By that measure, Russia is more legitimate than either of those two.

Well, how about its historical behavior? Rotten, sure. So is Germany's. (Ever hear of a guy named Adolf Hitler? How about World War I and World War II? There's more, but that should suffice.)

As for America, it's founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery. It is one of the most rapidly expanding empires in history. And contrary to its propaganda, it isn't very democratic. Never has been. It has only been in the last 90 years of its history that most adults were even legally permitted to vote in its elections. Today it is a corporate oligarchy fronted by a two-party dictatorship. Nothing to write home about.

We can talk about domestic policy, specifically repression. Presumably a nation that represses its own people is illegitimate. (Which would mean that MOST nations on earth are illegitimate, but never mind.) Russia is far from the most repressive regime on earth, and a LOT less repressive than various U.S. “friends” like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Colombia, to name but three. Much is made of political murders in Russia (despicable, to be sure), but they are on the same order of magnitude as U.S. political murders. Far more political murders are committed in Mexico and Colombia, both of which the U.S. is tight with. (But notice which of these nations gets obsessive U.S. media coverage about its repressiveness- only Russia.) [1]

In fact, the U.S. is more repressive than Russia, if one uses objective measures. The U.S. has the world's largest prison population- far larger than Russia's, and about the same as China's, a country with over four times the population of the U.S. The U.S. conducts the most extensive secret police surveillance of its population of any nation on earth, with the possible exception of North Korea.

The U.S. now has institutionalized torture.

Putin pardoned and freed 1,000 prisoners at the end of last year. Obama? 8. And unlike Putin, who freed the two imprisoned Pussy Riot members still in prison before their sentences were up, Obama freed not a single political prisoner. In fact, he made some of those he “freed” serve months more time in prison before being released, just to be even more grudging about it, it seems.

“Thug” Putin is ultimately responsible for a handful of political killings. Murders. Obama is proud to have killed thousands of “terrorists,” including children, grandmothers, rescue workers, medical personnel, and a 16 year old American son of a “terrorist propaganda.”

But all this doesn't really matter. The U.S. recognizes Russia as a legal nation. Russia is a UN member, and holds a permanent seat on the UN “Security” Council. If the U.S. admits that Russia is a legitimate nation, it has to admit it has legitimate interests. It would be impossible for a nation to NOT have interests, as it would be impossible for a person to not have interests.

If having a friendly Ukraine on its border, and preserving a vital naval base and the military output of Ukrainian factories aren't vital, legitimate interests, what are?

ANY half-competent and RESPONSIBLE Russian ruler would HAVE to defend these vital national interests! Apparently the U.S. was spoiled by Boris Yeltsin, a grossly incompetent, criminally irresponsible drunkard who sold his nation down the road to the U.S. Yeltsin's reign was incredibly destructive for Russia. No wonder the U.S. loved him. Apparently only rulers who will betray their own countries to benefit the U.S. are acceptable to the U.S.

For trying to protect his nation's immediate border, Putin is daily accused in the West of trying to “recreate the Soviet Union” and “restarting the Cold War.” What hogwash. These polemicists, propagandists, politicians and apparatchiks of the U.S. bloc should just come right out and say that they don't accept Russia's right to even have interests- which means it really has no right to exist.

I'm not surprised that a lot of Russians- and a good number of Ukrainians too- disagree with that. I wonder why idiot Western elites are surprised.

1] A couple of thousand people were just sentenced to death in Egypt after two one-hour “trials,” arising from the death of a single cop. In Colombia, labor organizers are routinely assassinated by fascist death squads, which Obama and the U.S. media look the other way and shovel military and secret police aid to the regime and directly help the regime murder leaders of FARC. Mexico is a carnival of the most lurid violence and state corruption, and the police are simply criminal organizations themselves. But oh man, Russia is so corrupt and criminal! Double standard, anyone?

With a side order of hypocrisy and cynicism; coming right up!